


bulletproof

by Choices_We_Make



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Armor, Armor by Landon Austin, But like gently, Canon Compliant, Feels, Forgiveness - kinda sorta?, Gen, Harry talks to Severus, Harry writes a...letter? To Snape? Idk guys, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm not bulletproof when it comes to you, Inspired by Music, Not really sure what this is honestly, Regret, Second War with Voldemort, Second Wizarding War, Snape gets called out, Songfic, Subtle references to the Dursley's abuse, Wizarding Wars, Written from Harry's perspective, i'm just gonna drop this here, let's get real folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 18:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17903204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Choices_We_Make/pseuds/Choices_We_Make
Summary: You were just another in the long myriad of people who were supposed to protect me. So it shouldn’t have hurt so much when you, too, flaunted your contempt. But I’m not as bulletproof as you’d like to imagine.Not when it comes to you.





	bulletproof

_I’m not bulletproof when it comes to you_

You were just another in the long myriad of people who were supposed to protect me. So it shouldn’t have hurt so much when you, too, flaunted your contempt. That soft pounding of my pulse in my throat, stomach clenching, thoughts pinched down to one agonized word: why? Why was it always me? Why here, in my first sanctuary, a place I came to with a beaming hope of refuge? Why you, why here, why hate? The minute I stepped into the classroom and your dark eyes flickered over me with a lingering malice, the minute I shimmied eagerly into my desk under your watchful gaze; the minute your lips curled into a sneer as you directed your first words toward me. Maybe I should have been used to it. Maybe I should blame it on the hopeful naivety of an eleven-year-old plunged into a world of magical dreams. But the sting as my fingers clenched into my pal, the taste of my own bitter saliva on my tongue, the cursed feeling of betrayal, a sinking in the pit of my stomach, defeated, resigned, _I-should-have-known-better_ , and that nauseous, persistent suggesting that it might just be something wrong with _me_ , that it couldn’t just be my family, because it _wasn’t_ just them.

Those feelings should have faded in six years.

They didn’t.

No matter how I shrug your words off, they always come back to me.

Sometimes in the heated, heavy silence of air still sweating with nightmares, sometimes in the crackly stillness of a Fall afternoon looking over the blank waters of the lake.

I know you think what you say doesn’t make any different to me - it seems to make you even more prolific.

I’ve always worn armor. But that doesn’t mean the bullets don’t find their mark. You always managed to find the weakest spot, the thinnest layer of protection. You’ve always taken advantage of it. And I’ve always hated you for it, despite what I learned: _never show them weakness_. Not that it make a difference. The relentless attack never slowed, in the face of a haughty, bluffed strength or in the moments of sagging, weary weakness. I know you’d like to think I take it all in scoffing stride and it never slows me down for a second. But I’m not as bulletproof as you’d like to imagine.

Not when it comes to you.

_Don’t know what to say when you make me the enemy_

Bewildered. That’s how I remember feeling when you first snarled in my directions. It was obvious - to me, my friends, to the class, to the Houses. You had something against me. I didn’t know what it was. M eleven-year-old self was convinced I could change your mind, if I was just _good_ , if I did everything right, you would see me…my twelve-year-old self finally gave it up as a lost cause. One of this people I’d never manage to please, regardless of what I did, simply because you were so personally offended at my existence. I’d learned to recognize that type of people early. I don’t think it would’ve made a difference no matter what kind of boy I’d been.

I’ve never known what to do with the accusation, the glowing coals of loathing and resentment in your eyes. At fifteen, I was still trying desperately to at least be able to be civil, and still…underneath the rage that I used to push back, underneath the instinctive defensive reactions of self=preservation and the sarcastic, angry mechanisms I used to survive…bewildered.

I don’t know why there was a need to fight against me when we were on the same side. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t leave some things behind us. I was willing to try. But you never could settle for an armistice.

_After the war’s won, there’s always the next one_

What can we say about wars, about weapons? The ghosts that haunt humanity, the darker side that few generations have the privileged ability to ignore. People sacrificing their souls and innocence in the name of protecting souls and innocence. War is irony, a testament to the demons inside mankind that infect us all like a disease; the hunger for power, the desire to control, the drunkenesss of adulation, the need to _change_ things, to line the world up with your convictions. These are the things we never leave behind. War has scarred the world, and will scar it again.

But for it to scar you, so young…not to me, not then, but looking back I realize that I was young to be thrust in to such a world, but you…you were young to be going through it a second time. Nobody should have to live the cursed nightmare of a war twice. And yet there you were, caught in the thick of another black fight, the danger, the lies, dancing on the edge between two sides, never a true, honest, unsuspicious hand held out to you. You had your reasons to be bitter.

And Ihad my reasons not to understand.

Wars may leave deep, lasting subconscious and skin-real scars, but in the scheme of things? They come and go. Maniacs rise and fall in the struggle for blood and ideology. There will always be wars.

There won’t always be the same people. And there won’t always be second chances. I was used in that war just as much as you - one could argue more so. We were in similar positions. There was so much potential…I would have settled for anyone, _anyone_ , who showed an interest. I lost everyone close to me, and there was never anything to fill that great void, but more loss, until it seemed a whispering hole of darkness, even greater than I was, sucking me into it.

But you, you were too caught up in the past to acknowledge more than my passing hated existence, you never pulled your mind from the rut and routine of hatred and bitterness against a dead generation, you pitted yourself against the world for it's slights and determined to hate it to put things right. Nothing would ever change for you, because you wouldn't let it.

Words come and go, Severus.

It is people that we fight for, our real reasons in the midst of chaos and violence. Still endlessly selfish, as much as we push our agendas as a righteous cause.

And if you had softened, had opened, for one moment…you might have found a new reason why.

_Maybe I'll crash into you,_

_maybe we'll open these wounds,_

_we're only alive if we bruise,_

_so I lay down this armor!_

_I will surrender tonight_

_before we both lose this fight,_

_take my defenses_

_all my defenses_

_I lay down this armor._

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are <3!


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